Portable telephone with musical tones playback and class response to incoming call(s)

ABSTRACT

A portable telephone is designed to control generation of musical tones and/or incoming call sound in response to classes of telephone numbers by which incoming calls are to be received. That is, the portable telephone stops generating musical tones while generating incoming call sound in response to telephone numbers of the first class; or it gradually decreases musical tones in tone volume in response to telephone numbers of the second class. In response to telephone numbers of the third class, the portable telephone continues generating musical tones without interruption while automatically disconnecting the line without generating incoming call sound.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to portable telephones that have musical toneplayback functions in addition to portable telephone functions.

BACKGROUND ART

Recently, electronic distribution systems have been widely recognized bygeneral users or subscribers of portable telephones, so that melodysounds are downloaded and distributed to portable telephones as incomingcall sounds over communication networks. In the future, it is expectedthat plenty of portable telephones provide musical tone playbackcircuits to play back musical tones of prescribed musical tunes thathave rich expressions in music compared with simple incoming callsounds. For example, it is possible to develop portable telephonesincorporating MP3 (namely, MPEG Audio Layer 3) decoders, to which MP3data are distributed as audio contents. Thus, portable telephonesincorporating MP3 decoders can be used as new music playback devicesthat substitute for the existing portable cassette tape players, forexample.

It is naturally expected that users of portable telephones, which can beused as music playback devices, tend to regard musical tone playbackfunctions important rather than original portable telephone functions.In addition, it is considered that users, particularly young users, mayincline to listen to the music played back rather than human speech overphone communication. Such tendency will be increased in the futurebecause all users do not always feel happy to receive phone calls at alltimes, in other words, some users may refuse to receive phone calls fromunwelcome or undesirable persons with whom they do not want tocommunicate over the phones.

This invention is made in consideration of the aforementionedcircumstances, so it is an object of the present invention to provide aportable telephone that is capable of controlling tone volume of playedback musical tones and turning on or off playback of musical tones inresponse to the property of a calling party, which may be represented bycalling party communication data automatically transmitted to a calledparty, such as the significance, priority, and personality of thecalling party.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

This invention is applicable to portable telephones having both ofportable telephone functions and musical tone playback functions.Herein, this invention provides a portable telephone that controlsgeneration of musical tones and/or incoming call sound in response toclasses of telephone numbers by which incoming calls are to be received.That is, prescribed telephone numbers are stored in advance inconnection with classes, which are determined in consideration of thesignificance, priority, and personality of calling parties. In responseto the telephone number of the first class, the portable telephone stopsgenerating musical tones but generates incoming call sound to notify auser of reception of an incoming call from an important person such as achief in his/her company. In response to the telephone number of thesecond class, the portable telephone gradually decreases musical tonesin tone volume while generating incoming call sound to notify the userof reception of an incoming call from a preferable person such as afriend. In response to the telephone number of the third class, theportable telephone continues generating musical tones without generatingincoming call sound, wherein it also sends a prescribed voice message toa calling party such as an unwelcome person with whom the user does notwant to communicate over the phone, then, it automatically disconnects aline connected with the calling party.

Thus, it is possible to provide flexible manners for controllinggeneration of musical tones and/or incoming call sound in considerationof the classes of the telephone numbers that are listed in advance.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an electronic configuration of aportable telephone in accordance with a preferred embodiment of theinvention.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

This invention will be described in further detail by way of exampleswith reference to the accompanying drawing.

FIG. 1 shows an electronic configuration of a portable telephone inaccordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention. Herein,reference numeral 1 designates a central processing unit (CPU); 2designates a read-only memory (ROM) that stores programs run by the CPU;and 3 designates a random-access memory (RAM) that stores various typesof data and has battery backup. In addition, reference numeral 4designates an operator section that provides keypads of a ten-key unitfor allowing entry of telephone numbers and function keys; and 5designates a display that is constituted by a liquid crystal display.

Further, reference numeral 6 designates a communicator coupled with anantenna 7. The communicator 6 transmits signals and data by modulationusing carrier waves via the antenna 7, and it receives via the antenna 7incoming signals and data, which are demodulated and are forwarded tothe CPU 1 or a speech processor 8. The speech processor 8 convertsspeech signals output from a microphone 9 to digital data, which arecompressed and are then forwarded to the communicator 6 as transmissiondata. In addition, the speech processor 8 converts speech data outputfrom the communicator 6 to analog speech signals, which are forwarded toa speaker 10.

Reference numeral 13 designates a musical tone memory that storesdigital musical tone data. It is possible to share functions of themusical tone memory 13 with the RAM 3. A read/write controller 14performs read/write controls on the musical tone memory 13. That is,under the control of the controller 14, musical tone data are written tothe musical tone memory 13 by way of a bus line B and an interfacecircuit (I/F) 15; or musical tone data are read from the musical tonememory 13 and are forwarded to a musical tone signal playback circuit17. The musical tone signal playback circuit 17 receives the musicaltone data by way of the controller 14 to convert them to analog musicaltone signals, which are forwarded to an amplifier 18.

The amplifier 18 amplifies the musical tone signals output from themusical tone signal playback circuit 17. That is, the amplifier 18 isconstituted as a gain-controlled amplifier whose control terminalreceives the output of a gain controller 19. The gain controller 19receives signals A1, A2 from the CPU 1 by way of the bus line B andinterface circuit 15 so as to produce a control signal for controllingthe gain of the amplifier 18. Thus, the control terminal of theamplifier 18 receives the control signal output from the gain controller19 based on the signals A1, A2 given from the CPU 1. Herein, the gaincontroller 19 controls the amplifier 18 such that its gain is set to ‘0’if both the signals A1, A2 are ‘0’; or the gain controller 19 controlsthe amplifier 18 such that its gain is set to ‘1’ if both the signalsA1, A2 are ‘1’. When the signals A1, A2 are respectively set at ‘1’ and‘0’, the gain controller 19 controls the amplifier 18 such that its gaingradually decreases from ‘1’ to ‘0’.

An incoming call sound generator 23 generates incoming call soundsignals, representing sounds that inform the user or subscriber ofreception of incoming calls, in accordance with instructions given fromthe CPU 1. The incoming call sound signals are supplied to amplifiers 24and 25 respectively. The amplifiers 24 and 25 are constituted asgain-controlled amplifiers whose control terminals respectively receivesignals A3 and A4 from the CPU 1. The output of the amplifier 24 whosegain is controlled in response to the signal A3 is forwarded to a mixer26, while the output of the amplifier 25 whose gain is controlled inresponse to the signal A4 is forwarded to a speaker 28. The mixer 26mixes together outputs of the amplifiers 18 and 24 to produce mixedsignals, which are forwarded to headphones 27.

Next, operations and functions of the portable telephone will bedescribed in accordance with the present embodiment. The portabletelephone of the present embodiment is designed to have functions of amusic player as well as functions of a portable telephone terminal.

First, a description will be given with respect to portable telephonefunctions of the portable telephone of the present embodiment. In thiscase, the CPU 1 outputs signals A1, A2, A3, and A4 that are respectivelyset to ‘0’, ‘0’, ‘0’, and ‘1’. Thus, only the amplifier 25 acts as anamplifier whose gain is ‘1’, while the other amplifiers 18 and 24 areshut off because of gain ‘0’.

At reception of an incoming call, the communicator 6 receives incomingcall signals via the antenna 7, so that the incoming call signals aredemodulated to produce incoming call data, which are forwarded to theCPU 1. Upon receipt of the incoming call data, the CPU 1 stores into theRAM 3 a telephone number of a calling party while it also issues anincoming call sound generation instruction to the incoming call soundgenerator 23. Upon receipt of the incoming call sound generationinstruction, the incoming call sound generator 23 generates incomingcall sound signals, which are forwarded to the amplifier 25. Theamplifier 25 amplifies the incoming call sound signals to be forwardedto the speaker 28. Thus, the speaker 28 produces incoming call sound.

The portable telephone rings the incoming call sound to notify a user orsubscriber (namely, called party) of reception of an incoming call fromthe calling party. Then, the user presses a call reception button (notshown) on the operator section 4 to answer the phone. At this time, theCPU 1 detects depression of the call reception button to issue anincoming call sound stop instruction to the incoming call soundgenerator 23 while it also issues a call connection instruction to thespeech processor 8 and communicator 6. Thus, a call line is establishedand connected with the calling party, so that the called party of theportable telephone is able to speak with the calling party. Herein, themicrophone 9 converts the user's speech to speech signals, which aretransmitted to the calling party by means of the communicator 6 andantenna 7 over the connected line. In addition, the speech of thecalling party is transmitted to the portable telephone so that thespeech processor 8 converts the corresponding speech data to speechsignals, which are forwarded to the speaker 10. Thus, the user is ableto listen to the speech of the calling party by the speaker 10.

Next, a description will be given with respect to music playbackfunctions of the portable telephone that acts as a music player. In thiscase, the user operates the portable telephone to make a call to a musicdownload center that is located in the prescribed facility. Herein, theuser operates the portable telephone to designate a desired musical tuneand requests the music download center to download it thereto. The musicdownload center distributes all musical tunes in the prescribed formatof digital musical tone data. The portable telephone receives from themusic download center the digital musical tone data of the desiredmusical tune that is distributed from the music download center. Thus,the CPU 1 stores into the RAM 3 the digital musical tone datadistributed to the portable telephone. Incidentally, the RAM 3 iscapable of storing digital musical tone data of multiple musical tunestherein. After completion of distribution, the user operates prescribedkeys of the operator section 4 to designate one of the musical tunesstored in the RAM 3 and instructs playback of the designated musicaltune.

The user's instruction for the playback of the musical tune isacknowledged by the CPU 1 to output signals A1, A2, A3, and A4 that areset to ‘1’, ‘1’, ‘1’, and ‘0’ respectively. In response to these signalsA1 to A4, the amplifiers 18 and 24 act as amplifiers whose gain is ‘1’,while the amplifier 25 is shut off. Next, the CPU 1 reads from the RAM 3the digital musical tone data of the designated musical tune, which areforwarded to the controller 14. The controller 14 writes the digitalmusical tone data given from the CPU 1 to the musical tone memory 13.Then, the CPU 1 issues a music playback instruction to the controller14. Upon receipt of the music playback instruction, the controller 14reads from the musical tone memory 13 the digital musical tone data,which are sequentially forwarded to the musical tone signal playbackcircuit 17. The musical tone signal playback circuit 17 forms analogmusical tone signals based on the digital musical tone data output fromthe controller 14. The musical tone signals are forwarded to theheadphones 27 by way of the amplifier 18 and mixer 26. Thus, theheadphones 27 produce musical tones corresponding to the musical tonesignals.

Next, a description will be given with respect to reception of anincoming call from a calling party during playback of musical tones.

To cope with incoming calls during playback of musical tones, the userof the portable telephone stores in advance prescribed telephone numbersin the RAM, wherein the telephone numbers are listed in consideration ofspecific persons from whom the user have possibilities of receivingcalls. Herein, the telephone numbers are divided into groups (orclasses), namely, A, B, and C as follows:

A: important persons such as teachers, seniors and chiefs in one'scompany.

B: family members, relatives, friends and colleagues in one's company.

C: unwelcome persons with whom the user does not want to communicateover the phone.

When the portable telephone receives an incoming call, the CPU 1 storesthe telephone number of a calling person in the RAM 3. Next, the CPU 1compares the telephone number of the calling person with the prescribedtelephone numbers that are stored in the RAM 3 in connection with theaforementioned groups A, B and C respectively. That is, the CPU 1 checksthe telephone number of the calling person with the prescribed telephonenumbers stored in the RAM 3 in advance. If the telephone number matchesthe prescribed telephone number belonging to the group A, the CPU 1outputs signals A1, A2, A3, and A4 that are set to ‘0’, ‘0’, ‘1’, and‘1’ respectively; then, it outputs an incoming call sound generationinstruction. When the CPU 1 outputs the signals A1-A4 corresponding to‘0,0,1,1’, the amplifier 18 is shut off to terminate generation ofmusical tones by the headphones 27, while the amplifiers 24 and 25 actas amplifiers whose gain is ‘1’. In addition, the CPU 1 outputs theincoming call sound generation instruction to the incoming call soundgenerator 23, which in turn generates incoming call sound signals. Theincoming call sound signals are delivered to the headphones 27 andspeaker 28 by way of the amplifiers 24 and 25 respectively.

As described above, when the portable telephone receives an incomingcall from the person whose telephone number is listed in the group Aduring playback of musical tones, the portable telephone immediatelystops producing musical tones by the headphones 27, but it generatesincoming call sound by both the headphones 27 and speaker 28.

If the portable telephone receives an incoming call from a person whosetelephone number is listed in the group B during playback of musicaltones, the CPU 1 outputs signals A1, A2, A3, and A4 that are set to ‘1’,‘0’, ‘1’, and ‘0’ respectively; then, it outputs an incoming call soundgeneration instruction. When the CPU 1 outputs the signals A1–A4corresponding to ‘1,0,1,0’, the amplifier 18 is gradually decreased ingain from ‘1’ to ‘0’ so that the musical tones generated by theheadphones 27 are gradually decreased in tone volume, while theamplifier 24 acts as an amplifier whose gain is ‘1’ but the amplifier 25is shut off. Upon receipt of the incoming call sound generationinstruction, the incoming call sound generator 23 generates incomingcall sound signals, which are delivered to the headphones 27 by way ofthe amplifier 24.

As described above, when the portable telephone receives an incomingcall from the person whose telephone number is listed in the group Bduring playback of the musical tones, the portable telephone graduallydecreases musical tones in tone volume, while it also generates incomingcall sound by the headphones 27. This reduces unpleasant feeling of theuser that may be caused by interruption due to the incoming call duringplayback of the musical tones.

If the portable telephone receives an incoming call from a person whosetelephone number is listed in the group C, the CPU 1 accesses to the ROM2 to read and reproduce prerecorded voice message data, which correspondto a voice message as follows:

“Now, the user is unable to answer the phone.”

That is, the CPU 1 reads from the ROM 2 the aforementioned voice messagedata, which are forwarded to the speech processor 8. Then, the voicemessage data are transmitted to the calling person by the communicator 6and antenna 7. Thereafter, the portable telephone disconnects a lineconnected with a telephone terminal of the calling person. In this case,the portable telephone automatically sends the prescribed voice messageto the calling person without terminating playback of musical tones. Inaddition, the portable telephone does not generate incoming call soundthat may obstruct the user from listening to musical tones played back.Further, the portable telephone automatically disconnects the lineconnected with the ‘unwelcome’ calling person whose telephone number islisted in the group C.

If the portable telephone receives an incoming call from a person whosetelephone number is not listed in any of the groups A, B, and C, the CPU1 outputs signals A1, A2, A3, and A4 that are set to ‘1’, ‘1’, ‘1’, and‘1’ respectively; then, it outputs an incoming call sound generationinstruction. When the CPU 1 outputs the signals A1–A4 corresponding to‘1,1,1,1’, all the amplifiers 18, 24 and 25 continuously act asamplifiers whose gain is ‘1’. Therefore, the headphones 27 continuouslygenerate musical tones based on musical tone signals supplied thereto byway of the amplifier 18. In addition, the incoming call sound generator23 generates incoming call sound signals, which are delivered to theheadphones 27 and speaker 28 by way of the amplifiers 24 and 25respectively. Thus, both the headphones 27 and speaker 28 produceincoming call sound to notify the user of reception of an incoming callfrom an unknown person whose telephone number is not listed in any ofthe groups A, B, and C.

That is, when the portable telephone receives an incoming call from theunknown person whose telephone number is not listed in advance, theportable telephone simultaneously proceeds to playback of musical tonesand generation of incoming call sound by the headphones 27.

Lastly, this invention has a variety of effects and technical features,which are described below:

-   -   (1) This invention provides a portable telephone having a        musical tone playback function, wherein at reception of an        incoming call, a telephone number of a calling person is checked        against prescribed telephone numbers of calling parties that are        listed in advance in a storage, so that playback of musical        tones is controlled in response to the check result. Herein, it        is possible to control musical tones in tone volume, and turn on        or off playback of musical tones in consideration of the        significance of calling parties whose telephone numbers are        designated by calling party communication data.    -   (2) Playback of musical tones is controlled in response to        classes (or groups) of telephone numbers of calling parties. For        example, musical tones are decreased in tone volume or stopped        in response to classes of calling parties who actually call the        user of the portable telephone. That is, the user is able to        acknowledge the class of the calling party by sensing changes of        musical tones played back by the portable telephone. In other        words, it is possible to acknowledge the significance of the        calling party who actually calls the user of the portable        telephone.    -   (3) The portable telephone incorporates a controller that        decreases musical tones in tone volume at reception of an        incoming call from a classified calling party. Thus, it is        possible to reduce unpleasant feeling of the user due to        interruption during playback of musical tones.    -   (4) The portable telephone has a capability of automatically        disconnecting the line connected with the telephone terminal of        an unwelcome person with whom the user does not want to        communicate over the phone. Thus, it is possible to reduce        user's troubles in handling communication with the unwelcome        person. As described heretofore, this invention is not        necessarily limited to the foregoing embodiment, hence, it is        possible to provide a variety of modifications without departing        from the essential subject matter of this invention.

1. A portable telephone having an incoming call sound generator forgenerating incoming call sound, a line connection establisher forestablishing a line connection with a telephone terminal, a communicatorfor performing communication by the established line connection, and amusical tone generator for generating musical tones of a prescribedmusical tune, said portable telephone comprising: a storage for storingin advance prescribed telephone numbers in association with a pluralityof classes respectively; a telephone number checker for upon receipt ofan incoming call from a calling party, checking a telephone number ofthe calling party with the prescribed telephone numbers stored in thestorage to determine one of the classes to which the telephone number ofthe calling party belongs; and a musical tone controller for, uponreceipt of the incoming call during generation of the musical tones ofthe musical tune by the musical tone generator, controlling the musicaltone generator in a selected manner, in response to the class determinedby the telephone number checker, out of a plurality of predeterminedmanners respectively associated with the classes.
 2. The portabletelephone according to claim 1, wherein the musical tone controllercontrols the musical tone generator to gradually decrease musical tonesin tone volume when the telephone number checker determines that thetelephone number belongs to a prescribed one of the classes.
 3. Aportable telephone having an incoming call sound generator forgenerating incoming call sound, a line connection establisher forestablishing a line connection with a telephone terminal, a communicatorfor performing communication by the established line connection, and amusical tone generator for generating musical tones of a prescribedmusical tune, said portable telephone comprising: a storage for storingin advance prescribed telephone numbers; a telephone number checker forupon receipt of an incoming call from a calling party, checking atelephone number of the calling party with the prescribed telephonenumbers stored in the storage; and a line disconnecting section forinhibiting the incoming call sound generator from generating theincoming call sound while disconnecting a line connected with atelephone terminal of the calling party in response to a check result ofthe telephone number checker.
 4. A portable telephone comprising: astorage for storing in advance a plurality of prescribed telephonenumbers in association with a plurality of classes respectively; anincoming call sound generator for generating incoming call sound uponreceipt of an incoming call from a telephone terminal of a callingparty; a musical tone generator for generating musical tones of aprescribed musical tune; a telephone number checker for checking atelephone number of the calling party with the prescribed telephonenumbers stored in the storage and for determining one of the classes towhich the telephone number of the calling party belongs; and acontroller for controlling the incoming call sound generator and themusical tone generator in accordance with an incoming call sound controlpattern and a musical tone control pattern which are predetermined inassociation with each of the classes, the controller controlling theincoming call sound generator and the musical tone generator inaccordance with the incoming call sound control pattern and the musicaltone control pattern prescribed by the class determined by the telephonenumber checker when the incoming call is received during generation ofthe musical tones of the prescribed musical tune.
 5. The portabletelephone according to claim 4, wherein when the telephone number of thecalling party is determined to belong to a prescribed first one of theclasses by the telephone number checker, the controller controls inaccordance with the musical tone control pattern and the incoming callcontrol to cause the musical tone generator to stop generating themusical tones and to cause the incoming call sound generator to activateto generate the incoming call sound.
 6. The portable telephone accordingto claim 4, wherein when the telephone number of the calling party isdetermined to a prescribed second one of the classes by the telephonenumber checker, the controller controls, in accordance with the musicaltone control pattern and the incoming call control pattern, to cause themusical tone generator to gradually decrease the musical tones in tonevolume and to cause the incoming call sound generator to generate theincoming call sound.
 7. A portable telephone comprising: a storage forstoring in advance a plurality of prescribed telephone numbers inassociation with a plurality of classes respectively; an incoming callsound generator for generating incoming call sound upon receipt of anincoming call from a telephone terminal of a calling party; a musicaltone generator for generating musical tones of a prescribed musicaltune; a telephone number checker for checking a telephone number of thecalling party with the prescribed telephone numbers stored in thestorage; and a controller for controlling the incoming call soundgenerator or the musical tone generator or both in response to a checkresult of the telephone number checker, wherein when the telephonenumber of the calling party matches a prescribed telephone numberbelonging to a defined class within the plurality of classes, thecontroller controls the musical tone generator to continue generatingthe musical tones while inhibiting the incoming call sound generatorfrom generating the incoming call sound.
 8. The portable telephoneaccording to claim 7 further including: a voice messenger forautomatically sending a prescribed voice message to the calling partywhose telephone number belongs to the defined class; and a linedisconnecting section for after sending the voice message, automaticallydisconnecting a line used for communication with the calling party.
 9. Aportable telephone comprising: a storage for storing in advance aplurality of prescribed telephone numbers in association with aplurality of classes respectively; an incoming call sound generator forgenerating incoming call sound upon receipt of an incoming call from atelephone terminal of a calling party; a musical tone generator forgenerating musical tones of a prescribed musical tune; a telephonenumber checker for checking a telephone number of the calling party withthe prescribed telephone numbers stored in the storage; and a controllerfor controlling the incoming call sound generator or the musical tonegenerator or both in response to a check result of the telephone numberchecker, wherein when the telephone number of the calling party matchesa prescribed telephone number belonging to a first class within theplurality of classes, the controller stops the musical tone generatorgenerating the musical tones while activating the incoming call soundgenerator to generate the incoming call sound and when the telephonenumber of the calling party matches a prescribed telephone numberbelonging to a second class within the plurality of classes, thecontroller controls the musical tone generator to gradually decrease themusical tones in tone volume while activating the incoming call soundgenerator to generate the incoming call sound.
 10. A portable telephonehaving an incoming call sound generator for generating incoming callsound, a line connection establisher for establishing a line connectionwith a telephone terminal, a communicator for performing communicationby the established line connection, and a musical tone generator forgenerating music tones of a prescribed musical tune, said portabletelephone comprising: a storage for storing in advance prescribedtelephone numbers; a telephone number checker for upon receipt of anincoming call from a calling party, checking telephone number of thecalling party with the prescribed telephone numbers in storage; and amusical tone controller for controlling tone volume of the musical tonegenerator in response to a check result of the telephone number checker.11. A portable telephone comprising: a storage for storing in advance aplurality of prescribed telephone numbers in connection with a pluralityof classes, respectively; an incoming call sound generator forgenerating incoming call sound upon receipt of an incoming call from atelephone terminal of a calling party; a musical tone generator forgenerating musical tones of a prescribed musical tune; a telephonenumber checker for checking a telephone number of the calling party withthe prescribed telephone numbers stored in the storage; and a controllerfor controlling the incoming call sound generator and tone volume of themusical tone generator in response to a check result of the telephonenumber checker.